[16] The result is that since we at our birth received the mingled seeds of each of these affections, and since therefore our nature possesses much unevenness, a man of sense prays for better things, but expects the contrary as well, and, avoiding excess, deals with both conditions. For not only does
he who has least need of the morrow, as Epicurus
1
says,
most gladly advance to meet the morrow, but also wealth and reputation and power and public office delight most of all those who least fear their opposites. For the violent desire for each of these implants a most violent fear that they may not remain, and so renders pleasure in them weak and unstable, like a fluttering flame. But the man whom Reason enables to say to Fortune without fear and trembling,
his confidence and the absence of fear that their loss would be unbearable cause him to make most pleasant use of present advantages. For it is possible not only to admire the disposition of Anaxagoras,
3
which made him say at the death of his son,
I knew that my son was mortal, but also to imitate it and to apply it to every dispensation of Fortune:
I know that my wealth is temporary and insecure,
I know that those who bestowed my magistracy can take it away,
I know that my wife is excellent, but a woman, and that my friend is but a man, by nature an animal readily subject to change, as Plato
4
said. For men of such preparedness and of such disposition, if anything unwished yet not unexpected happens, disdain sentiments like these:
I never should have thought it, or
I had hoped for other things, or
I did not expect this, and so do away with anything like throbbings and palpitations of the heart, and speedily restore again to quiet the madness and disturbance of their minds. Carneades, indeed, reminded us that in matters of great importance it is the unexpected
5
that is completely and wholly the cause of grief and dejection. For example, the kingdom of Macedonia was infinitely smaller than the Roman dominion, yet when Perseus lost Macedonia, both he himself bewailed his own evil genius and every one thought that he had become the most unfortunate and ill-starred man in the world
6
; but Aemilius, his conqueror, handed over to another his supreme command of practically the whole earth and sea, yet was crowned and offered sacrifice and was esteemed fortunate - and with good reason, for he knew that he had taken a command which would have to be relinquished again, whereas Perseus lost his kingdom when he had not expected to do so. And well has the Poet taught us how strong the effect of an unexpected happening is: Odysseus, for instance, shed a tear when his dog fawned upon him,
7
yet when he sat beside his weeping wife,
8
gave way to no such emotion; for into the latter situation he had come with his emotion under control and fortified by reason, but he had stumbled into the former without having expected it, and suddenly.
Welcome to me if any good you bring;
But if you fail, the pain is very slight,
2
De Tranquillitate Animi. Plutarch. William Clark Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1939.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.